Mainstream Weeklyhttp://www.mainstreamweekly.net/
ISSN : 0542-1462
RNI No. : 7064/62enSPIP - www.spip.netRSS Chief's Pronouncementshttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7748.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7748.html2018-02-17T11:23:42Ztext/htmlenSCEDITORIAL <br />Almost forty years ago the Janata Party Government in New Delhi collapsed primarily because the Jana Sangh component of the then ruling conglomerate refused to sever its deep connections with the RSS. It was akin to breaking its <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7748.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p><strong>EDITORIAL</strong></p>
<p>Almost forty years ago the Janata Party Government in New Delhi collapsed primarily because the Jana Sangh component of the then ruling conglomerate refused to sever its deep connections with the RSS. It was akin to breaking its umbilical chord that linked it to its parent. The erstwhile Jana Sangh leaders, especially Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, conveyed that the RSS being a socio-cultural organisation, it was not involved in any political activity; so having any connection with it would not in any way impair the Janata Party's functioning. This was rejected by the Janata leaders of impeccable secular credentials, notably those in the socialist wing headed by the Janata General Secretary, Madhu Limaye, who took a grave view of the “dual membership” issue that affected the Jana Sangh elements in the Janata, that is, their simultaneous membership of the Janata Party and RSS because of the role the latter had played not merely in the assassination of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi but also in the functioning of the Indian polity since then, besides its pro-British orientation and activities during the freedom struggle.</p>
<p>Today secular personalities like Madhu Limaye, who unfortunately are no longer with us, stand vindicated. They had then prophesied that by ignoring the dual membership issue the former Jana Sangh elements were creating a situation whose implications would be most serious and far-reaching in future. This is doubtless what has happened now. The RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat, while addressing the Sangh volunteers in Bihar's Muzaffarpur the other day, boasted that his organisation had the capability of raising a force within “three days” while the Army would need “six to seven months” to do so. This was a clear move to place the RSS above the Army even though in a subsequent clarification the RSS leaders have asserted that they did not want to replace but complement the Army. As <i>The Indian Express </i>opined, <i> </i></p>
<p>......the remark quickly drew Opposition fire. Rahul Gandhi deemed it an insult to every Indian, to the flag, the soldier, martyrs and the Army. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said it confirmed that the RSS has no respect for India's institutions and has a hidden agenda to float parallel militias. The RSS has “clarified” since, but Opposition leaders continue to demand an apology. It is only apt that the RSS should face the brunt for its chief's unsightly boast—it is, after all, an organisation that is seen to be the power behind the BJP throne, that enjoys influence in politics and government but ducks accountability by claiming to be only socio-cultural in character.</p>
<p>The daily further pointed to the RSS attempts to muddy the discourse on nationalism. Here another clarification needs to be brought into focus. Nationa-lism <i>per se </i>is not objectionable even though Rabindra-nath Tagore had found it difficult to accept the essence of nationalism. Actually Tagore's difficulty lay in the thin line dividing nationalism from national chauvinism—it was the latter which the poet could not countenance and felt that nationalism could easily slide into national chauvinsim whose best illustration is currently the theory espoused by the RSS chief. Regrettably, the RSS is seeking to destroy nationalism and transform it into national chauvinism and this needs to be resisted at all costs.</p>
<p>The more the RSS comes out in its true colours, courtesy Modi and his cohorts, the more secularists of all hues must expose the national chauvinists and their disruptive activities that militate against secular democracy on the one side and healthy inclusive nationalism on the other. Mohan Bhagwat's latest pronouncements have brought out the necessity of this task in bold relief.</p>
<p>It must also be understood that the RSS and its affiliates in the <i>Sangh Parivar</i> are out to destroy national unity and social cohesion as the so-called fringe <i>Hindutva</i> elements' attacks on young couples observing Valentine's Day across the country today testify.</p>
<p><i>February 14 S.C. </i></p></div>
The silence at Gaddafi during Asma's funeral was a reminder of what losing a champion sounds likehttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7747.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7747.html2018-02-17T11:22:24Ztext/htmlenTRIBUTE <br />by Rimmel Mohydin <br />The funeral was scheduled for 3 pm on Tuesday (Febuary 13). On a regular day, the Gaddafi Stadium is about a 12-minute drive away. We left at exactly 1:45 pm. It was everyone's last chance to see her. Obviously, the <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7747.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p><strong>TRIBUTE</strong></p>
<p>by Rimmel Mohydin</p>
<p>The funeral was scheduled for 3 pm on Tuesday (Febuary 13). On a regular day, the Gaddafi Stadium is about a 12-minute drive away. We left at exactly 1:45 pm. It was everyone's last chance to see her. Obviously, the traffic would be terrible.</p>
<p>We got as close as we could to the stadium gates in our car, and then started making our way into the crowd on foot. The ambulance carrying her wasn't too far away. It moved slowly, aware of the gravity of the woman it was driving.</p>
<p>Asma Jahangir passed away suddenly on Sunday, February 11. She had turned 66 about two weeks ago. Her daughter has confirmed it was a heart attack.</p>
<p>On Monday evening (February 12), rumours spread that Asma's funeral would be led by her sister and long-time activist, Hina Jilani. That only women would shoulder her shroud.</p>
<p>Every woman I know held her head a little higher when they heard of this possibility, which only Asma could make seem plausible. Had she really done it, yet again?</p>
<p>I told this to my colleague on the way to the funeral. He responded: “It's never going to happen.”</p>
<p>Gaddafi Stadium is used to noise from the cricket matches it hosts on occasion. But yesterday (February 13), it was quiet. Thousands walked, hushed. Perhaps we were hoping for the slightest noise that her death was a ruse, fake news, as baseless as all of the allegations against her.</p>
<p>Maybe we were quietening down to see if anyone would speak up to claim her space. Or maybe, it was what losing a champion sounds like.</p>
<p>We shuffled around the parameter of the stadium, craning our necks to see beyond the person immediately in front of us. I caught many a whisper—what's going on? How much more do we have to walk? Where is she?</p>
<p>We didn't know where we were going or where the walk would end. But we knew we were moving towards Asma. And for many, that's all they really needed to know.</p>
<p>Drones hovered over our heads, and arms holding cell phones were held aloft, filming the crowd. Cameras and media crews occupied prime real estate around Asma's body.</p>
<p>Unlike most Pakistani public spaces, you could see as many women as men. You notice this a lot more if you are a woman. There was a ballooning in my chest, ready as I was to see Hina lead the prayer.</p>
<p>This didn't happen. And to compound the disappointment, the men, used to occupying as much space as desired, sprawled themselves around the wooden cot. They naturally assumed we would just back away, like we always do.</p>
<p>But this was, after all, Asma's funeral.</p>
<p>A woman next to me asked the women around her to make space for a line. Then she raised her voice slightly to spread the instruction. Soon, she and three other women were shouting over the men, demanding more room.</p>
<p>More and more people began to shuffle in the space, stepping to their right, stepping to their left, moving forward, moving backwards. Asma's daughter Munizae asked the men to cooperate.</p>
<p>Rows upon rows formed. Silence fell over us again. The Imam began his prayer.</p>
<p>I suddenly realised, this was the first time I had offered a prayer that was led by a male Imam. It did not feel out of place. It might have, had I been the only woman there. But this was Asma's funeral.</p>
<p>Men and women praying together, shoulder to shoulder, was Asma's last subversive act. It felt like an encore. This small rebellion has made some people angry. It wouldn't be Asma if it didn't.</p>
<p>And that has been a consistent pattern in her life. Some were annoyed by her, others were outraged, and there was no shortage of detractors.</p>
<p>They did not give her special treatment as a member of the ‘fairer sex'. Her battles were those reserved for men. She was a credible threat. They did not go easy on her. They talked about her like they would talk about a man.</p>
<p>In the crowd, I noticed many women were sporting bright yellow scarves, including Tehmina Durrani. Upon closer inspection, there was Urdu text printed on them. I tapped a woman in front of me to ask what they represented.</p>
<p>She must have been about 60 years old. “It's for members of the Women's Action Forum,” she said. “Have you heard about it?”</p>
<p>I blinked at her. I didn't think there was a girl alive in Pakistan who didn't know about the WAF and their great work. I wanted to be offended. But I realised, to live in a world where these hard-fought freedoms could be taken for granted, was its own kind of privilege. This is what Asma left behind.</p>
<p>Growing up, she was the only female lawyer I knew of. But in the sea of mourners, I was surrounded by female lawyers.</p>
<p>I was accompanied by Sarah Belal, a relentless anti-death penalty activist I have the privilege to work with. I spotted Nighat Dad, tireless in defending our digital rights.</p>
<p>Syeda Ghulam Fatima, who has risen from being a bonded labourer herself, and has been fearless in liberating modern-day brick slaves, stood right next to Asma's family.</p>
<p>Asma's spirit was everywhere, just as it continues to be in every quiet act of rebellion for female lawyers in the courts. Whether it's smoking a cigarette or raising your voice in the courtroom, it feels like it has been attempted before. You always hear them whisper—“Just like Asma Jahangir.”</p>
<p>So when the men carried her body, as tradition would have it, it didn't hurt as much. She had done her job.</p>
<p>On our way out, I noticed a gardener transfer a sapling from a pot into the ground near the entrance of the stadium. When any great tree falls, the best we can do is to plant more.</p>
<p>(Courtesy: <i>Dawn, </i>Pakistan)</p>
<p><i>Rimmel Mohydin is the Head of Communications at Justice Project Pakistan. She tweets @Rimmel_-Mohydin.</i></p></div>
Dr Ajit Mozoomdar Is No Morehttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7746.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7746.html2018-02-17T11:21:14Ztext/htmlenDr Ajit Mozoomdar, 94, was born in Patna in 1924. He belonged to an illustrious Brahmo family. His education was in Patna and in Calcutta. He joined the IAS in 1946. After joining the service, he obtained a scholarship from the British Council <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7746.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>Dr Ajit Mozoomdar, 94, was born in Patna in 1924. He belonged to an illustrious Brahmo family. His education was in Patna and in Calcutta. He joined the IAS in 1946. After joining the service, he obtained a scholarship from the British Council and a D.Phil in Oxford. He returned to India and served in top positions, mainly in the Ministry of Finance. He retired as the Secretary of the Planning Commission, Government of India. After retirement, he was appointed the Executive Director of the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank.</p>
<p>He retained his interest in all academic activities and was part of the visiting Faculty of the Centre for Policy Research. He was also called to the Bar at the Inns of Court, London, during his stay in the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>His wife, Maya, passed away in 1998.</p>
<p>He passed away after a brief illness at New Delhi's Apollo Hospital on February 12, 2018. He was cremated at the Lodhi Crematorium the same evening. He leaves behind a son and a daughter and two grandchildren.</p></div>
Kalpana Dutthttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7745.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7745.html2018-02-17T11:19:41Ztext/htmlenNikhil ChakravarttyFrom N.C.'s Writings <br />The following lines were written by N.C. twentythree years ago and published in this journal's February 18, 1995 issue. It is being reproduced on the occasion of the distinguished revolutionary Kalpana Dutt's twentythird <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7745.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p><strong>From N.C.'s Writings</strong></p>
<p><i>The following lines were written by N.C. twentythree years ago and published in this journal's February 18, 1995 issue. It is being reproduced on the occasion of the distinguished revolutionary Kalpana Dutt's twentythird death anniversary which fell on February 8 this year. It came and went with hardly anyone remembering her on that day. Kalpana's birth centenary five years ago on July 27, 2013 also went virtually unnoticed. But we in </i>Mainstream <i>have decided to offer our homage to her memory by reproducing the following piece. Incidentally N.C. had also translated Kalpana's reminiscences under the guidance of P.C. Joshi, Kalpana's husband and the legendary General Secretary of the CPI (1943-48). </i></p>
<p>On February 8 passed away in a Calcutta hospital a frail figure who sixty years ago became a legend in the classical mould. Kalpana Dutt, born in 1913 in a middle-class Bengali home in East Bengal, was a student in Calcutta's Bethune College in 1930 when she came in contact with the group of Chittagong revolu-tionaries whose leader was the great Surya Sen, fondly called ‘Masterda' by all his disciples.</p>
<p>Soon Kalpana came under the hawk's eyes of the police and she had to return to Chittagong where she was interned at home. But the young revolutionary, in her secretly maintained close links with Surya Sen's revolutionary group, learnt handling firearms and engaged herself in other revolutionary activity. She would have been in the party of revolutionaries whose famous attack on the Armoury and the European Club touched off the famous Chittagong upsurge, an incident which electrified the entire nation. Kalpana at that time was serving a short prison term. As soon as she was released she went underground and for two years moved with Masterda's team. When Surya Sen was betrayed by a police informer, Kalpana escaped, and moved into hiding for three months, when she was arrested and brought to trial in what was known as the Chittagong Armoury Raid Supple-mentary Case, in which she was sentenced for life. After the nationwide campaign for the release of the imprisoned Bengal revolutionaries, she came out of prison in 1939.</p>
<p>Like many other Bengal revolutionaries, Kalpana took to Marxism in prison and after her release, joined the banned Communist Party. It was in those days that the present writer met her—a remarkable blend of humility and elegance with unswerving dedication to the cause of the country's freedom and the uplift of the downtrodden. During the Bengal famine, one saw her totally devoted to organising relief kitchen for the starving and medical relief for the sick in the Chittagong villages.</p>
<p>In 1943, about the time of the Communist Party Congress, Kalpana married P.C. Joshi, the popular leader of the Communists. She was fully occupied with her party work in Bengal. When the communal holocaust of the partition overtook Bengal, Kalpana was equally active in relief and rescue work. Then came the period of insensate sectarian adventurism of the Indian Communists under Ranadive, inflicting severe loss on the movement. Joshi and with him Kalpana were thrown out of the party. Bereft of shelter but undaunted in spirit, Kalpana received support from close friends, one of whom was Prof P.C. Mahalanobis who engaged her in his Statistical Institute, where she worked until she retired a few years ago.</p>
<p>With the country switching over to election politics after independence, few heard of Kalpana engaged as she was in her silent work. The lure of office and headline publicity never swayed her from utter devotion to the cause of fighting for the underprivileged and dispossessed. She remained unwavering in her conviction and unobtrusive in her dedicated work, no matter whatever the form be.</p>
<p>Out of the limelight this gem of revolutionary India was lost in the forgotten gallery of India's patriots so much so that even the Doordarshan could not spare a few seconds to announce her passing away. Those who have known her in life shall never forget the exquisite serenity of a personality who carried such an unbroken spirit of service to humanity.</p>
<p>Patriotism of the highest order in Kalpana shall remain a shining memory for all those who knew her.</p>
<p>(<i>Mainstream, </i>February 18, 1995)</p></div>
The Bhubaneshwar Declarationhttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7744.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7744.html2018-02-17T11:03:25Ztext/htmlenDOCUMENT <br />Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy's Tenth National Convention <br />The Bhubaneswar Declaration <br />We, the delegates to the 10th National Convention of the PIPFPD, held at Bhubaneswar on February 10-11, 2018 under the <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7744.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p><strong>DOCUMENT</strong></p>
<p><strong>Pakistan-India Peoples' Forum for Peace and Democracy's Tenth National Convention</strong></p>
<h3 class="spip">The Bhubaneswar Declaration</h3>
<p>We, the delegates to the 10th National Convention of the PIPFPD, held at Bhubaneswar on February 10-11, 2018 under the overhang of the rapidly deteriorating relationship between Pakistan and India, renewed our commitment to the joint struggle for peace and democracy in the two countries.</p>
<p>The delegates met at a very critical juncture in the relationship between India and Pakistan:</p>
<p><strong>*</strong> The Indo-Pak relationship has been reduced to the firing of mortar shells and anti-tank weapons, making the Line of Control the most violent ‘live' border between two nuclear armed neighbours, and made further volatile against the backdrop of escalating hyper-nationalist war jingoism, including statements by Army Chiefs threatening the use of nuclear weapons.</p>
<p><strong>*</strong> The Kashmir situation has steeply deterio-rated with widespread and deepening alienation of youth and citizens exacerbated by the state's abandonment of the policy of recognising and dealing with Kashmir as a ‘political' issue, and the overwhelming reliance on the use of a military approach including against protests by civilians.</p>
<p><strong>*</strong> People-to-people exchanges between India and Pakistan have been disrupted, there is a deliberate obstruction of visas and the hostile stigmatisation of the initiatives for peace.</p>
<p><strong>*</strong> Rampant violence against minorities has increased with the blatant complicity of state institutions and the political establishment.</p>
<p><strong>*</strong> Systematically democratic institutions are being weakened and constitutional values of pluralism, inclusion and secularism undermined with serious consequences for the protection of the rights of vulnerable groups, including Minorities, Adivasis, Women, Dalits and Workers.</p>
<p>More than hundred and fifty delegates, representatives of State chapters of the Forum from over ten States, resolved to fight the war hysteria, including actively intervening on policy issues towards building friendly and cooperative relations between India and Pakistan, crucially recognising that it is integral to the strengthening of democracy within our countries.</p>
<p>• We urge the state to resume the India-Pakistan dialogue to normalise the relationship between the two nuclear powered neighbours and immediately resume the DGMO exchanges so as to reduce tension and military confrontation on the border.</p>
<p>• We reiterate the Forum's core belief, that Kashmir is not a piece of disputed land, but recognise the Kashmir issue as central to the normalisation of Pakistan-India relations. We call for a prompt resumption of a political dialogue by the Government of India, with all stakeholders, as promised in multiple policy commitments.</p>
<p>• We call for the immediate resumption of the visa process to facilitate people-to-people contact and resumption of the rail and road links, which have been completely shut down, at the earliest.</p>
<p>• We appeal for the prompt release of prisoners, such as Hamid Ansari, an Indian in a Pakistani jail, on humanitarian grounds, and we express our solidarity in support of Raza Khan, a peace activist who has disappeared in the vicious witch-hunt against activists.</p>
<p>• We urge the government to reach agreements on marine fishing rights with neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, and promptly release all fishworkers currently being held in Indian and Pakistani prisons.</p>
<p>• We demand the restoration of India-Pakistan Judicial Committee on Prisoners.</p>
<p>• We restate our demand for the demilitarisation of Siachen and an end to the sacrifice of lives of soldiers at the altar of militarisation.</p>
<p>• We emphasise the state's primary responsibility to protect the rights of all people living in India, especially the minorities and take legal action against all violators and enforce the rule of law.</p>
<p>• We affirm our commitment to find ways to strengthen democratic institutions and resist divisiveness promoted by certain vested interests' groups fanning communal tensions.</p>
<p>• We deplore the aggressive war hysteria being raised by certain sections of the national and regional media and the irresponsible statements and behaviour of certain journalists who are igniting ‘nationalist sentiments'.</p>
<p>• We welcome the sharp gender perspective that was organically interwoven in all the thematic sessions, and emphasise the significance of the women's question in Indo-Pak relations and in that context we express our solidarity with the Kashmiri women's resistance day (February 23) against militarisation.</p>
<p>• We affirm the need to strengthen our organisation to perform these tasks</p>
<p><i>(Lohia Academy, Bhubaneswar)</i></p></div>
Modi in Parliament: Poverty, Farmers' Suicides, Unemployment, Hindutva Terrorism, Rapes, Violence Against Working Class Are No Problems, But Nehru Ishttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7743.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7743.html2018-02-17T11:01:04Ztext/htmlenShamsul IslamPM Modi's speeches in both the Houses of Indian Parliament on February 7, 2017, while defending the Motion of Thanks on President Ram Nath Kovind's address, belied the hope which some political analysts carried that Modi after becoming the PM <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7743.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>PM Modi's speeches in both the Houses of Indian Parliament on February 7, 2017, while defending the Motion of Thanks on President Ram Nath Kovind's address, belied the hope which some political analysts carried that Modi after becoming the PM would mature and overcome the <i>Hindutva</i> traits of double-speak, rabble-rousing and resorting to lies which he learnt in the RSS <i>shakhas</i>. While replying he showed that he remains a Hindu nationalist which he claimed to be his identity while talking to Reuters in 2013 as the CM of Gujarat. He resorted to lies, half-truths and demagogy as a seasoned Hindu nationalist.</p>
<p>He talked of Gandhi and Sardar Patel and talked of India of their dreams. The PM thinks our nation does not know what the Hindu nationalists did to Gandhi and what opinion Sardar Patel had about the Hindu nationalist organisations like the RSS and Hindu Maha-sabha. Gandhi was killed by Hindu nationalists who described his killing as a heavenly-ordained ‘<i>vadh</i>'. According to a favourite author of the RSS, K.V. Sitaramiah, Gandhi was ‘terrible, wicked and most sinful'. Rejoicing at the killing Gandhi he declared,</p>
<p><i>“As Bhagwan Shri Krishna said in the Gita, ‘For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of righteousness, I am born in every age.' On...30th January 1948 evening, Shri Ram came in the form of Nathuram Godse and ended the life of Gandhi.”</i></p>
<p>Shockingly, the conference in Goa where this dehumanised author celebrated the ‘<i>vadh</i>' of Gandhi began with a congratulatory message from Modi in 2013.</p>
<p>So far as the Sardar as the new love of RSS/BJP is concerned, he as the first Home Minister of India banned the RSS for its role in the murder of the Father of the Nation. When the RSS denied it, Sardar in a letter dated September 11, 1948 to the then boss of the RSS, Golwalkar, told him that as a final result of the poison spread by the RSS against Gandhi,</p>
<p><i>“the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji...The RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death.”</i></p>
<p>PM Modi talked of democracy. It looks funny when the PM, a seasoned RSS cadre groomed by Golwalkar into a political leader, talks of democracy. He has become India. It is, in fact, what Golwalkar decreed as early as 1940. This <i>guru </i>of PM Modi while delivering a speech before the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS at the RSS headquarters, Resham Bagh, in 1940 declared, “RSS inspired by one flag, one leader and one ideology” was to light “the flame of <i>Hindutva</i> in each and every corner of this great land”. This is exactly what is happening under Modi. Indians are living under constant fear, under Emergency without a declared one.</p>
<p>Democracy under PM Modi is for crony capitalists and business cartels. Self-confessed Modi-<i>bhakt,</i> renowned columnist, Tavleen Singh, last week wrote:</p>
<p> <i>“In the villages I visited, living standards were so degraded that all that mostly illiterate villagers aspired to daily was finding enough water and food to keep their families alive. Their homes were huts of thatch and mud and their poverty was extreme. I met nobody who owned a cellphone or a television. The villages were bereft of schools, health centres, roads and public services of any other kind...This kind of desperate poverty exists in some measure in most States that the BJP has won since 2014...So in Davos when I listened to the Prime Minister expound upon the successes of his style of governance, I found it very disquieting.”</i></p>
<p>Under PM Modi's rule, so far as gathering of wealth is concerned, it is a one-way traffic. It is for the rich; so far as the vast majority of poor Indians is concerned, they have <i>Hindutva</i> to live with and enjoy. The Modi <i>mantra</i> seems to be wealth for the rich and <i>Hindutva</i> for the poor.</p>
<p>Modi is angry with the Congress for agreeing to Partition. It is true that the Congress agreed to Partition, Sardar Patel being the first Congress leader to be convinced by the sadist Viceroy, Mountbatten. But what were our <i>Hindutva</i> zealots doing? They were fighting for a democratic-secular India? No, absolutely not. The <i>Hindutva</i> gang joined the Muslim League in declaring that India was not one nation but two nations: Hindu nation and Muslim nation. Long before the Muslim League's Pakistan resolution it was the RSS' darling Savarkar who, while addressing the 19th Session of Hindu Mahasabha at Ahmedabad in 1937, declared:</p>
<p> <i>“India cannot be assumed today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.”</i></p>
<p>Modi wants us to forget about the criminal betrayal of the united freedom struggle by the <i>Hindutva</i> gang. During the ‘Quit India' Movement when the Congress was banned, all Congress leaders jailed, thousands of Congress workers shot dead for carrying the Tricolour, it was the Hindu Mahasabha which ran coalition govern-ments with the Muslim League in the provinces of Bengal, Sind and NWFP. Not only this, the Hindu Mahasabha under the leadership of Savarkar organised recruitment camps for the British armed forces throughout India when Netaji was trying to liberate the country militarily. Savarkar was doing all these with the full support of the RSS. If the Muslim League, as the flag-bearer of Muslim separatism, was demanding Pakistan, the RSS too demanded a Hindu state to replace democratic-secular India. The RSS organ, <i>Organiser,</i> in its issue on the very eve of Independence, dated August 14, 1947, rejected the whole concept of a composite nation (under the editorial titled ‘Whither'):</p>
<p> <i>“Let us no longer allow ourselves to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe and sound foundation...the nation itself must be built up of Hindus, on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations”.</i></p>
<p>In the same issue <i>Organiser,</i> the RSS' flag-bearer of Hindu nationalism, demeaning the choice of the National Flag, wrote:</p>
<p> <i>“The people who have come to power by the quirk of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it will never be respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”</i></p>
<p>Jawaharlal Nehru was the special target of PM Modi's hatred. Modi seems to be possessed with the obsession of Nehru. He was responsible for all ills faced by India. Nehru, a close confidant of Gandhi and Sardar Patel, died in 1964 and to subject him to unparalleled insults and denigration 55 years after his death was sickening, pure and simple sadistic. It not only showed the true character of our Hindu nationalist PM but made it clear that Nehru remains the most formidable opponent to the <i>Hindutva</i> juggernaut which is on roll to destroy our democratic-secular polity. It is not the physical Nehru but his idea of an all-inclusive India. The <i>Hindutva</i> rulers know that despite the <i>‘vadh'</i> of Gandhi by the <i>Hindutva</i> terrorists and death of Nehru long back, the Idea of India, propounded and practised by these two, continues to cause shiver amongst their <i>Hindutva </i>adversaries. Gandhi and Nehru may be killed every day but it is an undeniable fact that it is due to the versatility of their Idea of India that India is the only country which survives as a democratic-secular polity out of 35 countries which were born after World War II.</p>
<p>PM Modi's intolerant speech made it clear once again that Nehru remains the greatest stumbling block in taking India on the path of Pakistan; 71 years after that path had destroyed Pakistan. For PM Modi poverty, farmers' suicides, unemployment, <i>Hindutva</i> terrorism, rapes, violence against working class are no problems but Nehru is the biggest problem!</p>
<p><i>Shamsul Islam, a well-known theatre personality, is a former Associate Professor (now retired), Department of Political Science, Satyawati College, University of Delhi. For some of the author's writings in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu and Gujarati see the following link: </i> http/du-in.academia.edu/Shamsullslam</p></div>
Sectarian Politics and the Partition of India: The Targeting of Nehru and the Congresshttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7742.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7742.html2018-02-17T10:57:46Ztext/htmlenAnil NauriyaThe rise of Hindutva-related organisations in India, especially since the late 1980s, has witnessed frequent attacks by them on the pre-freedom Congress in relation to the partition of India in 1947. These attacks increased since 2013 in the <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7742.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>The rise of <i>Hindutva</i>-related organisations in India, especially since the late 1980s, has witnessed frequent attacks by them on the pre-freedom Congress in relation to the partition of India in 1947. These attacks increased since 2013 in the run-up to the General Elections of 2014. Some <i>Hindutva</i> organisations have become less covert than before in their glorification of the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi. Simultaneously, other sections of the <i>Hindutva</i> forces have sought to disclaim responsibility for Gandhi's assassi-nation and to shift the focus of their attack on Jawaharlal Nehru.</p>
<p>In this essay, some aspects of these phenomena are being explored. A connection between these tendencies and a development on another plane is also being underlined. This is that certain somewhat dubious and one-sided critiques of the pre-freedom Congress in relation to Partition, fostered by the late 20th century colonialist historiography, have been feeding into the <i>Hindutva</i> narrative.</p>
<p>Decades after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the Hindu Mahasabha workers have in recent years become emboldened publicly to glorify his assassins. On January 30, 2016, precisely 68 years after the assassination, some of them reportedly distributed sweets to mark the killing as they continue to hold Gandhi responsible for the Partition of India in 1947.</p>
<p>On the same day an intellectual associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sought, on the electronic media, nominally to dissociate the RSS from the prime assassin. However, the RSS and its various offshoots, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have seldom dissociated themselves from holding the Indian National Congress (Congress) responsible for Partition. On the contrary, this has been a major plank in its propaganda offensive against the Congress. Many BJP leaders have resorted to such rhetoric, especially at election time.</p>
<p>For instance, these attacks became especially marked since the latter months of 2013 in the run-up to the General Elections of 2014.1 Some of the <i>Hindutva</i> organisations have also become less covert than before in their glorification of the assassins of Mahatma Gandhi. Simul-taneously, other sections of the <i>Hindutva</i> forces have sought to disclaim responsibility for Gandhi's assassination and to shift the focus of their attack on Jawaharlal Nehru.2</p>
<p>There have also been some gradual changes in the rhetoric of the BJP compared, on the one hand, with that of the Jan Sangh, its pre-1977 predecessor, and on the other, with that of its natural allies such as the Hindu Mahasabha, the Shiv Sena and similar parties. The Hindu law reform conducted in the 1950s during Jawaharlal Nehru's tenure as the Prime Minister had not gone down well with the sections of society prone to support the Jan Sangh, and the momentous churning of a near-stagnant social milieu provided a further point for conservative Hindu bitterness towards the country's first Premier. It was some two decades later, with the Jan Sangh's involvement in the political movement led by Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) in the mid-1970s, that the Sangh found itself having to engage Gandhians, Sarvodaya workers, socialists and others.</p>
<p><strong>The Targeting of Nehru</strong></p>
<p>Thus, when the Jan Sangh re-emerged in 1980 as the BJP, its traditional doctrinal positions gave way to some modified formulations; alongside it became necessary to reshuffle the punching bags that the new party would target in its political practice. It is in this phase that its fire came to focus more exclusively on Nehru and his family. This did not mean that the BJP quite discarded its previous antagonism toward Gandhi.</p>
<p>By the 1990s, the BJP under Lal Krishna Advani had internalised <i>Hindutva,</i> the ideological position of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha leader. In 2003 the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Govern-ment even installed, in the Central Hall of Parliament, a portrait of Savarkar who had directly inspired Gandhi's assassin. JP was long dead and, in any case, for the BJP, he had served his purpose. The BJP (and the Shiv Sena) felt enabled to disclose some more affinities with the Hindu Mahasabha without directly attacking Gandhi himself.</p>
<p>The BJP strategy of not directly attacking Gandhi coupled with a selective utilisation of his name continues. Given the great respect in which Gandhi is widely held, it would have perhaps been inexpedient for the BJP, both domestically and internationally, to adopt a course that a party with no immediate prospect of wielding—or continuing to wield—power might have felt free to do. For that reason, despite the celebration and sweets-distribution organised by the Hindu Mahasabha workers on the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination in 2016, the main focus of the <i>Hindutva</i>-BJP attacks in the immediate future is likely to be not on Gandhi as such but on the Congress, in particular on Nehru and his family.</p>
<p>The functioning of the post-1969 Congress too facilitated this concentrated fire on Nehru's family by the BJP. As the Congress began increasingly to be identified personally with Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, power within the party came to be centralised in her and her younger son during the Emergency (1975-77). After her return to power in 1980, and the death later in the year of the younger son, power within the party came to be wielded also by her elder son who would, after her assassination in 1984, succeed her as the Prime Minister and remain in office till 1989. Finally, after the death of all the three, the Congress came gradually to be identified at its apex with Sonia Gandhi and also, in due course, her children. In this scenario, attacks on Nehru and his dynasty have received new traction. A very substantive part of the <i>Hindutva</i> attack involves popularising the thesis that the Congress in general, and Nehru in particular, were responsible for Partition.</p>
<p>There have been two tactical features of the <i>Hindutva</i> attack on the Congress in relation to Partition. First, the <i>Hindutva </i>forces consciously eschewed any reflective analysis of the pre-independence politics of the Hindu Mahasabha and, second, with respect to British imperial objectives, they either passed them over sub silentio or treated them as not being of adequate importance in determining the ultimate outcome of Partition.</p>
<p><strong>The Silence over Savarkar</strong></p>
<p>For example, the consequences of V.D. Savarkar's adoption of the two-nation theory have not been reflected upon, let alone honestly analysed in <i>Hindutva</i> historiography and propaganda. In his presidential speech at the Calcutta session of the Hindu Mahasabha in December 1939, Savarkar declared that “We Hindus are a nation by ourselves.”3 In this speech he pointedly excluded Muslims from this definition of nation. Significantly, this was a few months before Jinnah and the Muslim League formally adopted the two-nation theory.</p>
<p>On August 15, 1943, four years after the ‘Hindus are a nation' articulation, Savarkar said:</p>
<p>“For the last 30 years we have been accustomed to the ideology of Geographical Unity of India and the Congress has been the strongest advocate of that unity but suddenly the Muslim minority, which has been asking one concession after another, has, after the Communal Award, come forward with the claim that it is a separate nation. I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah's two nation theory. We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations.”4</p>
<p>There are three noteworthy points about this statement. First, in spite of his earlier 1939 speech, Savarkar now affects surprise at the Muslim League demand. Second, even he concedes that the Congress has been the strongest advocate of the unity of India. Third, he endorses Jinnah's two-nation theory. It is quite amazing that even after Savarkar took the position that Hindus and Muslims were separate nations, <i>Hindutva-</i>oriented circles could claim to raise the banner of Akhand Bharat (and even murder Gandhi in its name). Indeed, the Akhand Bharat slogan was again raised by an RSS spokesman on August 15, 2016.5</p>
<p>A leading political figure like Savarkar would, it must be assumed, have been fully aware of the demographic composition of the various regions of undivided India. When he spoke of Hindus and Muslims being two separate nations, surely he must have known, or would have been expected to know, that this could serve to legitimise the demand for separation of the regions where there was a majority of the people who, he argued, constituted a separate nation.</p>
<p>Obviously, Savarkar was aware of the implications of what he was saying. He knew, as even a person of the meanest intelligence would have been expected to know, that such a formulation could involve geographical Partition. Even though they may raise the slogan of Akhand Bharat, the <i>Hindutva</i>-oriented critics' real grievance against Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress, therefore, was not, and is not, that the country was divided. Their real grievance obviously is that Gandhi, Nehru and the Congress continued to believe in a composite culture and the concept of a nation that did not accord with theirs. That is why Gandhi lost his life and that is why Nehru is under attack today. Such matters are not analysed or even mentioned in writings by persons belonging to organisations like the RSS, Jana Sangh or the Bharatiya Janata Party.6</p>
<p>As it happened, the vigorous renewal of the <i>Hindutva</i> propaganda holding the Congress responsible for Partition, began even as a similar critique of the party, albeit from a diametrically opposite perspective, was being developed in some academic writings, especially at Cambridge University. From the early 1980s, this would gain appreciable circulation and also feed into the <i>Hindutva</i> attack. It is, therefore, necessary to deal with this particular academic critique, as it appears, in spite of its many errors, to be not infrequently repeated.7</p>
<p>As in the case of the <i>Hindutva</i> positions, discussion here too proceeds without recognition of the existence of any British colonial strategic objectives regarding Partition. This is strange considering the attention given by the British to retaining control in areas in undivided India's north-west and the north-east.8</p>
<p>The hypothesis has been put across from time to time that in the 1940s Nehru stood in the way of a federal structure which Jinnah supposedly desired.9 The notion, which has in recent years received some traction, seems to be that Jinnah stood for a more inclusive, broader Union which was not acceptable to the Congress leaders. Generally, the “loose federal Union” argument is made in the context of the British Cabinet Mission Plan of May 1946. The Cabinet Mission Plan, in paragraphs 6 and 7, rejected the ‘larger' and ‘smaller' versions of Pakistan that had been placed for consideration, and overtly envisaged an undivided India. The Plan was to be subject to re-consideration at the instance of any province after 10 years, and every 10 years thereafter. It envisaged three Groups A, B, and C; Group B would consist of the Muslim-majority provinces in the north-west and Group C of the eastern provinces of Bengal and Assam. The Groups would come together at the Centre in respect of specified subjects.</p>
<p><strong>The Fallacy of a Federal Cabinet Mission Plan</strong></p>
<p>The two underpinnings of the “loose federal structure” argument are, first, that this is an adequate description of the character of the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 and, second, that Jinnah had “accepted” this Plan. The view, first expressed by the then Viceroy Wavell, and later popularised by Cambridge scholars as well as some Bombay-based lawyers, was that the Cabinet Mission Plan was “accepted” by Jinnah and the League and that this implied that the Pakistan demand had been given up. This view has been widely circulated, sometimes with the qualification that the demand was effectively given up.10</p>
<p>The opposite was the case in fact. The resolution, passed on June 6, 1946, by the Council of the Muslim League, by which the Plan was supposedly “accepted”, made it clear that Pakistan remained its “unalterable objective”.11 Curiously, this part of the resolution was not emphasised either by Ayesha Jalal in her work on Jinnah published by the Cambridge University Press or by H.M. Seervai in his work on Partition.12 Jalal and Seervai did not deal also with the League's Madras session (1941), where it had been made clear by an amendment to the League's Constitution that its Pakistan demand was not a ‘bargaining counter'. Both these writers were the principal propagators, after Wavell, of the idea that the League had “accepted” the Cabinet Mission Plan which had, prima facie, rejected the Pakistan idea.</p>
<p>The second and third paragraphs of the League's resolution of June 6, 1946, reiterated that Pakistan remained “the unalterable objective” of the League and that the Cabinet Mission Plan was for it only a step towards Pakistan, which it saw as “inherent in the Mission's Plan”.13 It is not as if the League had “accepted” the Cabinet Mission Plan and the Congress and Nehru simply came and torpedoed it. The League's options with respect to the Cabinet Mission Plan were restricted as the Labour Government in Britain at this stage was not willing to overtly go further by way of a direct Pakistan commitment. The Mission's Plan ostensibly rejected the Pakistan concept; even so, as the League noticed, an alternative route to Pakistan was implicit in the Plan. In the third paragraph of the League Council's resolution of June 6, 1946, it was observed that “it will keep in view the opportunity and right of secession of Provinces or groups from the Union, which have been provided in the Mission's Plan by implication”.14 There was on the League's part no intention to work the Plan except as a route to attain Pakistan.</p>
<p>While later withdrawing its “acceptance” of the Cabinet Mission Plan, the Muslim League had cited, <i>inter alia,</i> a statement by Nehru on July 10, 1946, at a press conference in which he had declared that the Constituent Assembly would be sovereign.15 Yet given the fact that the League had, just a month earlier, on June 6, 1946, reiterated the Pakistan objective, it is hardly fair to blame Nehru's statement for a withdrawal of a League “acceptance” that did not really exist in the first place.</p>
<p>Besides, the Congress had already made it clear through Maulana Azad's letter of May 20, 1946 to Lord Pethick Lawrence, who led the Cabinet Mission, that it would look upon the Constituent Assembly as a sovereign body for the purpose of drafting the Constitution “unhindered by any external authority”. This letter was drafted by Nehru. What Nehru said on July 10, 1946 was, therefore, not entirely new.</p>
<p>A federal structure requires that the provinces have some control over themselves and their fate. In their submission to the Cabinet Mission four days before the Plan was announced, the League had somewhat brazenly referred to Assam as a “Muslim province”.16 The Cabinet Mission obliged the League by placing Assam in Group C, along with Muslim-majority Bengal. There was hardly any upholding of the federal principle here. In placing Assam in Group C the British would have known that they were including in the Plan a “deal-breaker”. The statement issued by the Cabinet Mission on May 16, 1946, required under Paragraph 19 (iv) that the provincial representatives to the Constituent Assembly would divide up into three Sections (corresponding respectively to Groups A, B, and C). Paragraph 19 (v) of the Statement further required that these “Sections shall proceed to settle Provincial Constitutions for the provinces included in each Section and shall also decide whether any Group Constitution shall be set up for those Provinces”. Maulana Azad pointed out in the letter (drafted by Nehru) to the Cabinet Mission on May 20, 1946, that Bengal would thus play a dominating role over Assam as the Plan required the Provincial Constitution to be “settled” not by the Province but by the Section, that is Constituent Assembly members belonging to Group “C”, comprising Bengal and Assam. Rules framed by Group “C” could thus nullify the theoretical option given to a Province to opt out of a Group at a later stage. Azad pointed out that similarly in Group B, Punjab would dominate over Sind and the NWFP. Incidentally, those familiar with the workings of politics in Pakistan today would readily endorse the validity of this apprehension. In the form in which it was presented, the Cabinet Mission Plan cannot be treated as coterminous with or equivalent to setting up a “federal structure”. In actual fact it had the effect of covertly throttling provincial federalism at the Group level.</p>
<p>There were other features militating against inclusiveness. Some of these were immediately obvious. Others unfolded in the course of the Cabinet Mission's deliberations. Sikhs were left out on a limb in Group B. Jinnah resisted also a role for non-League Muslims in the Executive Council envisaged under the Cabinet Mission Plan. Thus he sought to determine not only the League's representation on the Council but also the composition of the Congress representation. In this context, Zakir Husain was to Jinnah a “Quisling”.17 To describe such positions as federalist or inclusive in any way is hardly tenable.</p>
<p>Speech-making apart, Jinnah had difficulty not only with the federal principle but also with a pluralist approach on Pakistan. In the course of his talks with Jinnah in 1944, Gandhi had suggested a referendum in the Muslim-majority areas to ascertain by adult suffrage of “all of the inhabitants of the Pakistan area” whether they wished to be part of a separate state. The offer is recorded in Gandhi's letter of September 22, 1944 to Jinnah. He also suggested in the letter that a “third party or parties” be called in “to guide or even arbitrate between us”. Jinnah responded on September 25, 1944, by demanding that the voting in such a referendum be confined to the Muslims in the area.18 Thus he was not inclined to permit the Sikhs, Hindus, Christians and others in the so-called Pakistan area to have a say in the future of the area that was their home. Such positions sit ill with civil libertarian claims.</p>
<p>Throughout the relevant period, the British resisted suggestions for resolution of the inter-communal question which did not involve a key role for themselves. They saw themselves as arbiters in an inter-communal dispute. Gandhi and Maulana Azad had called this particular bluff more than once in statements usually neglected by historians.</p>
<p>On August 8, 1942, a few hours before his arrest on the next day, Gandhi dictated a letter to a citizen of Bombay, backing Azad's offer to the League that if it cooperated fully in the demand for Indian independence, the Congress would have no objection “to the British Government transferring all the powers it today exercises to the Muslim League on behalf of the whole of India, including the so-called Indian India”.19 On May 8 1946, also Gandhi had suggested that an “impartial non-British tribunal” go into the points of dispute.20 But it was difficult to get the British to agree. In fact, the provision in the Cabinet Mission Plan regarding review after every 10 years also contained within it the likelihood of continued British supervisory presence.</p>
<p>Parenthetically, we may note that within independent Pakistan too, Jinnah was not enamoured of federalism or its implications. Although Bengalis constituted a majority in Pakistan after its formation, Jinnah, in a speech at Dhaka on March 21, 1948, declared that Urdu and “no other language” would be Pakistan's state language.21 It was this early disinclination to grant a due place to the Bengali language in Pakistan that contributed to the movement for secession of its eastern wing.</p>
<p>The oft-heard lament for the Cabinet Mission Plan and the attempt by diverse forces to pin its ‘failure' upon the Congress and Nehru is especially surprising considering some other, particularly obscure, features of the Plan. These features associated with the Cabinet Mission Plan have historically not received adequate attention. These relate to the complicated tie-up envisaged in the Plan between four future events and processes: (i) the lengthy Constitution-making process required under the Plan, (ii) the transfer of power and sovereignty in the form of independence to India, (iii) the condition relating to the formulation of a treaty between the United Kingdom and the Constituent Assembly, and (iv) the stationing of British troops in India and the terms on which these troops would be withdrawn.</p>
<p>An examination of this intricate inter-relationship indicates that the Cabinet Mission Plan was not a document simply offering a ‘loose federal Union'. We may, for the present, consider these features seriatim.</p>
<p>First, the length of the Constitution-making process envisaged under the Plan; for it was only after this process was complete that sovereignty was to be transferred under the Plan. In a statement issued on the same day as the Plan was announced, Stafford Cripps declared:</p>
<p>“So the three Sections will formulate the Provincial and Group Constitutions and when that is done they work together with the States representatives to make the Union Constitution. This is the final phase.”22</p>
<p>Thus, as per the Cabinet Mission's Plan, work on the Union Constitution would start only after Provincial and Group Constitutions were ready. That meant that each Group could take its own time settling its own Constitution and the Constitutions of the Provinces comprising the Group. Then work would start on the Union Constitution in association with the (princely) States. Paradoxically, the Cabinet Mission Plan simultaneously declared [in Paragraph 14] that British paramountcy over the princely States would not be transferred to the new Indian Government on attainment of Indian indepen-dence. Thus even while expressing the hope that the princely States would co-operate, the Cabinet Mission Plan offered the States the enticing prospect of their own independence if they did not co-operate in the making of a Union Constitution.</p>
<p>Second, it is not generally known that the matter of transfer of sovereignty was deferred under the Cabinet Mission Plan. The Secretary of State for India, Pethick Lawrence, as leader of the Cabinet Mission, wrote in his letter dated May 22, 1946, to Azad that “independence cannot precede the bringing into operation of a new Constitution”.23 He added:</p>
<p><i>“When the Constituent Assembly has completed its labours,</i> His Majesty's Government will recommend to Parliament such action as may be necessary for the cession of sovereignty to the Indian people...”24 [emphasis added]</p>
<p>Even at that stage this transfer of sovereignty was to be subject to certain provisos. Oddly enough, these vital issues have often escaped attention.</p>
<p>A third aspect concerns the Treaty envisaged under the Plan. Paragraph 22 of the Cabinet Mission Plan made it “necessary to negotiate a treaty between the Union Constituent Assembly and the U.K, to provide for certain matters arising out of the transfer of power”.25</p>
<p>The Cabinet Mission did not envisage any transfer of sovereignty in the form of indepen-dence without the Union Constitution having been drafted and in the absence of such a Treaty having been negotiated. The inevitably long-drawn Constitution-making process intrinsic to the Plan also implied the possibility of continued British supervisory presence. What shape would this take? Moreover, what was there to prevent this supervisory presence from telescoping into the review after the 10 years envisaged in the Plan? [It may be noted parenthetically that it was only on February 20, 1947, by when it had become fairly clear that the Cabinet Mission Plan was not working, that the British Prime Minister announced a “definite intention” to hand over power to Indian hands “not later than June 1948”.]</p>
<p>There is finally the inter-related matter of the stationing of British troops. In the Nehru-drafted letter of May 20, 1946, Azad had pointed out to the Cabinet Mission that its notion of British troops remaining in India “till after the establish-ment of the Government in accordance with the instrument produced by the Constituent Assembly” would be “a negation of India's independence”.26 Nehru made this point several times. For example, on August 20, 1946, he observed:</p>
<p>“I am sure that when British armed might is removed from India, it will be easier for all of us to face the realities in India and arrive at mutually advantageous agreements.”27</p>
<p>The Cabinet Mission, while confirming in its statement on May 25, 1946, that there was “no intention of retaining British troops in India against the wish of an independent India under the new Constitution”, maintained that “during the interim period” it was “necessary” that “British troops should remain”.28 By “interim period” was meant the entire elongated period leading up to the framing of the Union Constitution under the Plan, which would be a sequel to the framing of the Provincial and Group Constitutions, and finally the formulation of a Treaty between the Constituent Assembly and the UK.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, in his letter dated May 20, 1946, to Pethick-Lawrence, Gandhi had also observed that with British troops in India, “independence would in fact be a farce” and that “it can in no way be contended that in the face of the troops, there would be natural behaviour in the Constituent Assembly.”29</p>
<p>Thus in the obviously long-drawn Consti-tution-making process envisaged under the Plan, with no transfer of power or sovereignty in the form of Indian independence, and with one political party still committed to its objective of Pakistan, the continued British presence, including the presence of British troops, had the distinct prospect of playing off Groups, Provinces, and Princely States against one another.</p>
<p>The Cabinet Mission Plan was quite different from the current perception of it in sections of the academic community and among sections of the intelligentsia. That this perception has acquired an appreciable hold is, in part, to be accounted for by the resources still available to colonialist historiography. Far from being the blueprint of a loose federal Union, the Cabinet Mission Plan contained within it no early, clear and definite prospect of Indian independence as such; instead it set out a constitutional route for dissolution, a possible prelude to a larger Pakistan and even to the prospect, under colonial auspices and under the watch of British troops, of the separate independence of various Princely states.</p>
<p>Looked at from any angle, therefore, it appears that attempts to shift the primary responsibility for failure of the Cabinet Mission Plan and consequently for Partition upon Nehru individually or upon the Congress collectively, whether these attempts be made on behalf of <i>Hindutva</i> or on behalf of the League or by Colonialist historiography, are less than convincing and historically dubious. This is so particularly because each one of the forces involved in or associated with such targeting usually excludes its own role from the analysis. It is necessary that this record be set straight as the sectarian accounts tend to become elements in the contemporary political and electoral arena.</p>
<p><strong>References</strong></p>
<p>1. See, for example, Narendra Modi's statements reported with the dateline Kheda, November 10, 2013. Last accessed September 6, 2016.</p>
<p>2. See, for example, the report about an article published on October 17, 2014 by the mouthpiece of the RSS in the southern State of Kerala. Last accessed September 6, 2016.</p>
<p>3. <i>Indian Annual Register,</i> 1939, Vol. 2, p. 317.</p>
<p>4. <i>Indian Annual Register,</i> 1943, Vol. 2, p. 10.</p>
<p>5. <i>The Indian Express,</i> 2016, RSS leader asks youth to make ‘Akhand Bharat' a reality. August 15. Last accessed September 23, 2016.</p>
<p>6. See, for example, Jaswant Singh, <i>Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence,</i> Rupa and Co, New Delhi, 2009. Incidentally, the silences on the Hindu Mahasabha, and its post-Malaviya leadership, in Jaswant Singh's book become more deafening as Partition approaches. The last mention in it of the Mahasabha is with reference to the Gandhi-Jinnah talks of 1944 about which it is observed at p. 312: “The announcement of the impending meeting also angered the members of the Hindu Mahasabha.”</p>
<p>7. For an earlier critique of such perspectives, see Anil Nauriya, ‘Some Portrayals of Jinnah : A Critique', in D.L. Sheth and Gurpreet Mahajan (eds.), <i>Minority Identities and the Nation-State,</i> Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999, pp. 73-112.</p>
<p>8. We may cite one of various indications of a British expectation of a foothold in the so-called ‘Pakistan' areas. On April 25, 1946, a few days before the Cabinet Mission Plan was announced, one of the contingency arrangements put forward by Sir William Croft, the Deputy Under Secretary of State, India Office, was “that we should withdraw from Hindustan and leave it to its own devices while staying in Pakistan by agreement which he estimated would be forthcoming...”.(<i>The Transfer of Power, 1942-7,</i> HMSO, London, Vol VII, Document 138) Upon this Viceroy Wavell said that he “had considered this possibility in consultation with the Commander-in-Chief, and thought that ‘we might have to contemplate something of the sort'. ...”. (<i>The Transfer of Power,</i> Vol VII, <i>Idem</i>) At the meeting of the Cabinet delegation with Wavell on May 31, 1946 the Viceroy said that “he did not feel that there were final grounds for rejecting the possibility that we might remain in North-Eastern and North-western India for an indefinite period”. (<i>The Transfer of Power,</i> Vol VII, Document 415) This line of thinking was understandable also because, so far as British control of India was concerned, Wavell, his administration and provincial Governors were naturally more in sync with policies maintained by the previous British Government headed by Winston Churchill than with the post-war Labour Government. Earlier, when on a visit to England soon after the change in Government, Wavell had on August 31, 1945 called on Churchill, the former Prime Minister, the latter's parting advice had been to “keep a bit of India”. (Wavell, <i>The Viceroy's Journal,</i> Oxford University Press, Delhi 1973, p. 168)</p>
<p>9. In an article published on August 18, 2009, Jaswant Singh was reported as follows: He said Jinnah envisaged that some areas of the new country would have Muslim majority areas and some Hindu majority areas and believed a federal system that kept the country as one was desirable. Nehru, by contrast, demanded a system that was centralised. “Nehru believed in a highly centralised policy. That's what he wanted India to be,” Mr Singh went on. “Jinnah wanted a federal polity. That, even Gandhi accepted. Nehru didn't. Consistently he stood in the way of a federal India until 1947 when it became a partitioned India.<i>"<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/search-for-the-real-villain-of-partition-divides-india-again-1773486.html" class='spip_url spip_out auto' rel='nofollow external'>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/search-for-the-real-villain-of-partition-divides-india-again-1773486.html</a>.</i> Last accessed September 6, 2016.</p>
<p>See also: ‘Nehru was as much to blame as Jinnah for Partition' (January 2016). Rediff interview with Nisid Hajari (author of <i>Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India's Partition,</i> Viking/Penguin, Gurgaon, 2015): <i>"<a href="http://m.rediff.com/news/interview/nehru-was-as-much-to-blame-as-jinnah-for-partition/20150813.htm" class='spip_url spip_out auto' rel='nofollow external'>http://m.rediff.com/news/interview/nehru-was-as-much-to-blame-as-jinnah-for-partition/20150813.htm</a>".</i> Last accessed September 6, 2016. In the interview to Rediff, Hajari asserts : “Up until the spring of 1946, a political compromise that would have preserved a united India, was still possible. The Congress—Nehru in particular—would have had to grant the Muslim areas that (eventually) became Pakistan more autonomy than he was willing to grant, and have had to accept a weaker Central government than he wanted.”</p>
<p>10. See, for example, Aijaz Ahmad, “‘Tryst with destiny' —free but divided”, <i>The Hindu,Independence DaySupplement,</i> August 15, 1997, pp. 21-27 at pp. 22-23.</p>
<p>11. For text see Maurice Gwyer and A. Appadorai, <i>Speeches and Documents on the Indian Constitution, 1921-47,</i> Vol. II, Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1957, pp. 600-602 at p. 601.</p>
<p>12. Ayesha, Jalal, <i>The Sole Spokesman : Jinnah, The Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan,</i> Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985 and H. M. Seervai, <i>Constitutional Law of India,</i> Vol 1, N. M. Tripathi Private Ltd., Bombay, 1991, (4th edition).</p>
<p>13. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>Speeches and Documents on the Indian Constitution, 1921-47,</i> Vol. II, 1957, p. 601.</p>
<p>14. <i>Idem.</i></p>
<p>15. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit., </i>p. 619.</p>
<p>16. Terms of Offer made by the Muslim League as a basis of agreement, May 12, 1946, see Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit.,</i> p. 573. Earlier, on February 7, 1946, Viceroy Wavell, in a cable to Pethick-Lawrence, had accepted that Assam (apart from Sylhet district) was not a province to which there could be “a reasonable claim” on behalf of the projected Pakistan. (<i>The Transfer of Power, 1942-7,</i> HMSO, London, Vol VI, Document 406). When the Cabinet Mission Plan was yet in the making the Mission offered to Jinnah on April 16, 1946 the possibility of a Union Centre limited to essential subjects and envisaging also “in one federation the whole of the Provinces of Sind, Baluchistan, North-West Frontier Province, the Punjab and Bengal plus perhaps the Sylhet district of Assam”. (<i>The Transfer of Power,1942-7,</i> Vol VII, Document 116) By the time the Cabinet Mission Plan was announced in the following month, Assam as a whole was to be added to Group C. The Mission was fully aware of the unfairness of this particularly when the Group was to frame the Provincial Constitution as well. A note by W. Croft and F.F. Turnbull, secretary to the Mission, circulated on 25 April 1946, and by these two men and G.E.B Abell, the Private Secretary to the Viceroy, on May 2, 1946 presaged this change in the manner the Mission would treat Assam. [<i>The Transfer of Power, 1942- 7,</i> Vol VII, Documents 140 (enclosure) and 179]. While these documents were not as such “accepted” they clearly affected the evolution of the Cabinet Mission proposals. Besides, a further rigidity was introduced in terms of restricting the possibility of any Province opting out of the particular Group in which it had been placed. After initially suggesting that “Provinces should be free to form groups...”, a formulation that still remained in Paragraph 15 of the Cabinet Mission Plan, the same document went on to nullify this by specifying in Paragraph 19 (viii) that “opting out” by a province from the Group could only be after “the new constitutional arrangements come into operation” and “after the first general election under the new Constitution”. The change in Paragraph 19 occurred primarily as a sequel to a cable on May 9, 1946 from F. Burrows, the Governor of Bengal whose views had also been sought by Wavell. (<i>The Transfer of Power,</i> 1942-7, Vol VII, Document 231) Burrows wanted also to ensure that the voting system within the Group, for formulation of the constitutional arrangements, be such that decisions would be by simple majority. The inherent unjustness of this was marked also in relation to the NWFP and similarly placed provinces. In any explanation of partition and analysis of sectarian politics the role of officials like Croft, Turnbull, Abell and Burrows who pointedly introduced and encouraged sectarian demands needs close evaluation. The arrangements devised by them appear to have been programmed to ensure the failure of the Cabinet Mission even before publication of its Plan. How these arrangements could be projected in scholarship and in ‘popular' writing as loose federal arrangements, and Nehru accused of opposing them without justification, remains quite inexplicable.</p>
<p>17. Wavell, <i>The Viceroy's Journal,</i> p. 296.</p>
<p>18. Sharifuddin Pirzada, <i>Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah's Correspondence, </i>East and West Publishing Company, Karachi, 1977, p. 124.</p>
<p>19. <i>Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi</i> (<i>CWMG</i>), Vol 76, p. 382.</p>
<p>20. <i>CWMG,</i> Vol 84, p. 123.</p>
<p>21. Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, <i>Speeches &#38; Statements as Governor General of Pakistan 1947-48,</i> Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad, 1989, p.183.</p>
<p>22. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit.,</i> p. 585; italics added.</p>
<p>23. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit.,</i> p. 591</p>
<p>24. <i>Idem.</i></p>
<p>25. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit.,</i> p. 583.</p>
<p>26. <i>Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru,</i> Vol 15, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1982, p.177</p>
<p>27. <i>Ibid.,</i> p. 303.</p>
<p>28. Gwyer and Appadorai, <i>op. cit.,</i> p. 595.</p>
<p>29. <i>Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi,</i> Vol 84, pp. 173-174.</p>
<p>(Courtesy: <i><a href="http://www.thehinducentre.com" class='spip_url spip_out auto' rel='nofollow external'>www.thehinducentre.com</a></i>)</p>
<p>Anil Nauriya studied Economics, qualified for the Bar and since the early eighties, has been counsel at the Supreme Court of India and the High Court of Delhi. He has written on contemporary history and politics in India and has contributed to various books and journals, the latter including the <i>Economic and Political Weekly</i> (Mumbai), <i>Mainstream </i>(New Delhi), <i>Monthly Review</i> (New York) and <i>Natalia </i>(Pietermaritzburg). He was a Senior Fellow (2013-2015) at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. His writings include The <i>African Element in Gandhi,</i> (2006), <i>English Anti-Imperialism and the Varied Lights of Willie Pearson</i> (2014) and <i>Non-violent Action and Socialist Radicalism: Narendra Deva in India's freedom movement</i> (2015).</p></div>
Kasganj Violence: Unveiling the Anatomy of a Riothttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7741.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7741.html2018-02-17T10:54:32Ztext/htmlenby Ram Puniyani <br />Communal violence has been the bane of our society. There had been a perception that this violence is a spontaneous clash between two communities. Over a period of time, it is becoming clear that it is not a spontaneous <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7741.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>by Ram Puniyani</p>
<p>Communal violence has been the bane of our society. There had been a perception that this violence is a spontaneous clash between two communities. Over a period of time, it is becoming clear that it is not a spontaneous phenomenon, nor is it a clash between two communities, it is a planned violence. Scholars, basing themselves on analysis of the inquiry commission reports and the pattern of riots, show that violence is generally a planned event to polarise the communities for electoral benefits. Surely apart from communal parties other parties also have to be blamed for various slips of mainly omission and partly occasionally for active commission of the violence. The main source of this curse of our society is communal politics, which aims to rule in the name of religious identity. If there was any doubt about it, that got cleared in the Kasganj violence in UP on Republic Day 2018.</p>
<p>The story so far is that in Kasganj in Shahid Abdul Hamid Chowk a programme was organised by the minority community to celebrate the day, chairs were laid etc. Motor-bike-rider youths, nearly 90 or so, belonging to the RSS affiliate ABVP, came, carrying tricolour and saffron flags. They also had clubs and other armaments as per some reports, videos. They insisted at the Chowk to remove the chairs as they had to pass from there. The local Muslims asked them to join the programme rather than disturb it. The clash ensued. The tricolour-saffron flag wielding youth shouted the slogans, <i>‘Pakistan Murdabad'</i> (Death to Pakistan), <i>‘Hindi Hindu Hindustan, Katve Bhago Pakistan',</i> (Muslims go to Pakistan) <i>‘Is Desh Mein Rahna hai to Vande Mataram kahna Hoga'</i> (If you want to live in this country, you will have to say Vande Mataram). In the clash and bullet firing that followed two men received bullet injuries of which Chandan Gupta, who was also a participant of the bike rally, died and the other, a Muslim labourer Naushad, is being treated in hospital, having been severely injured.</p>
<p>A section of TV and other media presented it as if Muslims were resisting the tricolour- hoisting; so they opposed the bikers and forced them to shout pro-Pakistan slogans, something which is far from the truth. The role of a section of the media is very negative in communal violence. Police as usual did not stop or control the inciting mob. On the following day Rajveer Singh, a BJP MP, at the cremation of Chandan Gupta further added to the fury after which the mobs resorted to selectively burning vehicles and shops in the Muslim locality. The Yogi Adityanath Government has by now announced a compensation of Rs 20 lakhs for Chandan Gupta; hopefully compensation for other injuries and damages will be forthcoming.</p>
<p>An interesting sidelight took place this time around. Raghvendra Vikram Singh, the DM of Bareilly, in his Hindi facebook post criticised the event saying that “by now it has become a trend to take out processions in Muslim localities and shout anti Pakistan slogans. Are these people Pakistanis?” The post was taken down after intimidating trolling and the State adminis-tration expressing displeasure over the post. He wrote: “I apologise if some sentiments were hurt by what I said, but there is no denying that our secular ethos is at stake; there are things which need to be protected at all cost.” Another officer, Rashmi Varun (Deputy Director, Statistics, Saharanpur), in another post said that Chandan has been killed by saffron politics. (<i>Hindustan.com</i>)</p>
<p>The tragic violence has led to loss of one innocent life; injuries to few and loss of social property. The compensation so far has been selective. The whole incident and the facebook post of the DM reveals the deeper dynamics of how the violence gets orchestrated, The mechanisms of these do keep changing over a period of time, but what is constant is an evil innovation of techniques to target the vulnerable minorities. Earlier it had been taking out procession with loud music in front of the mosque and putting beef in temple. With time one saw that in the Mumbai violence of 1992-93 Maha Artis (Invocation Prayer) were devised to mobilise Hindus, the dispersing mass after the prayer would indulge in anti-minority violence. One has also seen the issue of Love-<i>Jihad</i> being used in the Muzaffarnagar violence. The girl who is supposed to be the victim, denied being harassed by the Muslim boy, but the mobilisation of Jats-Hindus continued never-theless. One can see the changing pattern of issues which are used to incite the violence.</p>
<p>What strikes one in Kasganj is that the anatomy of the violence is very clear. It seems this may be a preparation for the elections which are in the offing a year later. The <i>tiranga</i> (tricolour) issue is quite paradoxical for Muslims. They hurl it or abstain from it, both ways they are damned. What is more interesting is that tricolour, which was opposed by the RSS at the time of independence on the ground that number three is evil as per Hindu ethos and that the real flag of Hindus is saffron alone, today stands to use the same tricolour to browbeat and make it a vehicle for polarisation, through its affiliates like the ABVP and VHP. It seems as a backup to what has happened in Kasganj now the RSS is organising rallies in different cities and towns across the State. The rallies at this juncture look to be a “show of strength” in which uniformed cadres of the RSS and its affiliates in the <i>Sangh Parivar</i> will be marching with sticks.</p>
<p>To cover the whole thing, the BJP leadership wants to project that minorities opposed the tricolour and shouted pro-Pakistan slogans! One knows that all through the BJP's electoral strength has been going up, courtesy violence and consequent polarisation. The society needs to protect itself against such aggressive abuse of the tricolour for inciting violence, and be careful not to fall into the traps of provocation on any ground whatsoever.</p>
<p><i>The author, a retired Professor at the IIT-Bombay, is currently associated with the Centre for the Study of Secularism and Society, Mumbai.</i></p></div>
Pathless in Kashmirhttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7740.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7740.html2018-02-17T10:53:07Ztext/htmlenBarun Das GuptaPakistan has stepped up its proxy war in Kashmir. Terrorists belonging to different terror outfits backed by Pakistan are making almost daily attacks on Army and paramilitary camps and killing our jawans. Defence and Home Ministers are routinely <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7740.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>Pakistan has stepped up its proxy war in Kashmir. Terrorists belonging to different terror outfits backed by Pakistan are making almost daily attacks on Army and paramilitary camps and killing our jawans. Defence and Home Ministers are routinely warning Pakistan that ‘appropriate retaliatory measures' will be taken, though nothing is visible on the ground. J &#38; K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has called for talks with Pakistan because ‘war is not an alternative'. The hyper-nationalist section of the media has accused her of ‘batting for Pakistan'. But amid all such heated debates, one stark reality stands out: India does not know how to deal with the increasing <i>fidayeen </i>attacks and the equally increasing alienation of the people of Kashmir from ‘India'.</p>
<p>The security forces are doing what they have been told to do by the political leadership of the Union Government. They are carrying out the orders given to them. It is not for them to sit in judgment over the result of what they are doing. If threats of retaliation does not deter Pakistan from aiding and abetting and fuelling terror attacks in Kashmir, then there is only one alternative left: to strike and destroy the camps from which the terrorists are operating. This means risking a full-scale war with Pakistan with all its unpredictable consequences. If the Union Government is not prepared to take such a risk, only two alternatives remain: either to go on suffering these attacks or to open talks with Pakistan and try to hammer out a solution. Obviously the Modi Government does not want a full-scale war Pakistan. This is quite sensible. War between two nuclear-armed neighbours is always fraught with dire consequences.</p>
<p>What is complicating the situation far more is the growing alienation of the people of Kashmir. Use of force to put an end to terror attacks has not been successful. Rather, the use of force is proving counter-productive by alienating the people, especially the youth. Pakistan wants to grab the whole of Kashmir. Its plot can be frustrated only with the help and cooperation of the people of Kashmir as was done in the 1965 war. Alienating them will only help Pakistan. What is needed now is to win over the people of Kashmir by breaking out of the current mould of thinking. That requires sympathy, imagination and a healing touch. Holding the land of Kashmir but losing the mind of the Kashmiri people would be self-defeating. Calling Mehbooba Mufti a ‘pro-Pakistani' (or worse) will not help either. The political leadership of the BJP-led Central administration will have to think out of the box to find the path of ending the conflict in Kashmir.</p>
<p><i>The author was a correspondent of </i>The Hindu <i>in Assam. He also worked in </i>Patriot, Compass <i>(Bengali), </i>Mainstream. <i>A veteran journalist, he comes from a Gandhian family and was intimately associated with the RCPI leader, Pannalal Das Gupta.</i></p></div>
Nothing Succeeds like Failurehttps://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7739.html
https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7739.html2018-02-17T10:51:51Ztext/htmlenBadri RainaThe Fidayeen attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Jammu City is barely over when news of another daring attack comes, this time from the heart of Srinagar City in the thick of the Karan Nagar colony, a walking distance from the S.M.H.S Hospital <a href='https://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article7739.html' class=' pts_suite'> (...)</a>
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<div class='rss_texte'><p>The Fidayeen attack on the Brigade Headquarters in Jammu City is barely over when news of another daring attack comes, this time from the heart of Srinagar City in the thick of the Karan Nagar colony, a walking distance from the S.M.H.S Hospital from where an LeT terrorist escaped from police custody a week ago.</p>
<p>But, not to worry: the official discourse continues to be that the more we fail in Kashmir and vis-a-vis Pakistan, the more we are actually succeeding.</p>
<p>That oxymoron may of course be too much for some of us morons. We are invited to understand that the greater the savagery of the firing from across the Line of Control, greater the number of dead and wounded—soldiers and civilians—, greater the misery of marginalised inhabitants along the border to and froing from homestead to bunker to homestead, greater the damage done to school-going children's education, greater the number of militants surfacing anywhere and everywhere through the length and breadth of the State, more acute the alienation of the people of the Valley and the more stern their resolve to be seen standing next to the attackers, even perhaps of some “mainstream” politicians who have sworn allegiance to the Constitution of India, the more demonstrable the success of Mr Modi's policy vis-a-vis Kashmir and Pakistan. And if you wanted to know how or why, the answer is that with each new assault, Pakistan is only exposing itself more and more grievously, and being isolated in the international community.</p>
<p>We may be excused for saying “Wah! Chappan Inch”, we would never have suspected such subtle thinking had not your spokes-people told us so—and without batting an eyelid. Repeat: in our failure resides our success, even if in the operation of this <i>chanakya ki niti</i> we also succeed in isolating the people of Kashmir, man, woman, and child, beyond the point of no return.</p>
<p>After all, it is not the people there who constitute India, but it is the territory; and that we will never let go. Think that only this day the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has offered to put up an Army within days since it takes the Army months to do so. Do not think for a minute we are going to be allowed to construe that remark as an insult to the Army, or a dampner to its morale. Give or take, the emphasis is on the military route to somewhere, we do not know where. We only see General Bajwa and company chuckling at what inevitably seems our impotence, however laced with bravado and disingenuous palaver. The “enemy” seems to know that “Chappan Inch” can neither go to war, nor does he have the Fidayeen that Bajwa has. Nor will he rethink his boast and turn policy towards conciliation and talks. Bajwa sits pretty with a doughty China at his beck and call whenever needed, while India pats herself on the back at drawing politic statements from “world leaders” against “terrorism” and Pakistan's unprincipled support to it.</p>
<p>Try telling the Indian policy-maker that the best way to defeat Bajwa and the ISI is to take the Valley away from them by for once admitting our sins in refusing to honour the covenant the Indian state had solemnly made with the Kashmiris at the time they negotiated their Accession to the Union of India, and the deep failure of our democratic promise in Kashmir. And then by treating our Muslim citizens and our syncretic and pluralist history in which their part in the making of our civilisation is indelible and ubiquitous, however our rulers of today may seek to erase the same, with a felt equality of attitude, purpose and action, so that Kashmiris are enabled truly to answer the old question as to what stake they may have in a “Hindu-majority” India. And one thing is for sure: no brigades or battalions,, whether they come from our regular garrisons or from Nagpur have the right answers to that troubling question.</p>
<p>And, one more thing also is for sure: we haven't got much time.</p>
<p>The author, who taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is now retired, is a prominent writer and poet. A well-known commentator on politics, culture and society, he wrote the much acclaimed <i>Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. </i>His book, <i>The Underside of Things—India and the World: A Citizen's Miscellany, 2006-2011, </i>came out in August 2012. Thereafter he wrote two more books, <i>Idea of India Hard to Beat: Republic Resilient </i>and <i>Kashmir: A Noble Tryst in Tatters.</i></p></div>